


Business Time

by Dillian



Series: Springtime Exchange -- 2017 [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Smut, F/M, M/M, Maybe Some Regret In There Too, Multi, Smutty One-Shot, with some angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-03-04
Packaged: 2018-09-28 07:08:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10078904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dillian/pseuds/Dillian
Summary: Remember that scene in Iron Man 1, where they're on the plane, and Tony wants to have a good time, but Rhodey only wants to lecture him about responsibility?  What if Tony did manage to loosen up his best friend, what if he loosened him up a lot?Timeline of the movie still works, if you allow in one extra night somewhere, for Tony and Rhodey to sleep off their buzz.  Picture the bit where Tony snarks at Rhodey about the "fun-vee," taking place while they're both hung-over as shit (which would sort of make sense, wouldn't it?).  And now it's several years later, postCivil War.Tony's helping Rhodey with his physical therapy, and thinking about what happened, and the good old days gone by.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DaimeryanRei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaimeryanRei/gifts).



_**The Avengers** _ **,** _**Iron Man** _ **,** _**Thor** _ **, and** _**Captain America** _ **, and all situations and characters thereof, belong strictly and solely to Marvel Comics.  This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit.**

“Next thing you know I'm wearing absolutely nothing,  
Except for my socks.  
And you know when I'm down to just my socks,  
What time it is:  
It's business time!

[Chorus]  
It's business,  
It's business time.  
When I'm down to my socks it's time for business,  
That's why they're called business socks, oh.  
It's business,  
It's business time.  
Oh, ho, ho, ho, oh yeah, yeah.”  
\-- Song that could have been playing on the radio, while this story happens.  It wasn’t, but it could have been, it’s about the right era:  “It’s Business Time,” by Flight of the Conchords

This is a good-old-days story.  And it has sex in it, because that’s what made the good old days good.  It also doesn’t have guilt, or self-awareness…  Or Daddy-issues, for that matter.  This was what life was like back before those things, back when it was still fun.

The private jet:  There were always girls on it, okay?  Like, lots and lots of girls?  Flight-attendants, you called them, because that’s PC, saves you from lawsuits, but you’d get in the air, and those girls…  Well, let’s just say it’s not only the _flight_ they were attending to, okay?

Messed up?  Yeah.  You’d better believe it.  And, no respect for those girls, who were  after all, individuals, basically Pepper, only with better cans, and not-as-good resumes…  That came out wrong, didn’t it?  Try again:  World’s better when you respect women, treat ‘em as individuals, let ‘em make their own choices, etcetera, from an empowered position, but back in the good old days?

Back in the good old days, there was a time when all Tony saw was what was good for Tony, and who cares about the women?  And yeah, there was some denial in there, but mostly what there was?  Just fun.

And there was this jet:  Suits made it obsolete, of course, but it was a good jet.  Good jet had a good wine cellar, and a lot of good booze, and always lots of girls on board, who would do anything.  And one time he was on it…  This was the very end of the good old days, but of course he didn’t know it then.  ...And Tony was on this jet, as we were saying, and Rhodey was there too.  They were flying to…  Well, we won’t say where they were flying to, because we’re not bringing any of that stuff in here.  He was flying, okay?  Let’s just leave it there.

He and Rhodey were flying, good-old-days Rhodey, who was a best friend, but always a little bit of a stick-in-the-mud.  You know he’s still like that on the inside?   _Lot_ less changed about Rhodey, than there is about Tony, but there’s way too much that’s changed about both of them.

 _Back to the story:_  There was some champagne.  This was after the saké.  After that, there was brandy, but before that, there was some other stuff first.  It was really good stuff, really hot, and action-y, and…  Well, it was nice, okay?  This was back in the day when things were nice, and simple, and uncomplicated and fun.  Good times, back then, those were some good, good times.

__________________________

Rhodey:  Good old stuffy, boring, lecture-y Rhodey, the kind of guy who…  Well, here’s an example:  Rhodey, whose legs don’t even work right now… -- They will, Tony’s committed to it, and what he commits to, happens, okay?  But they don’t, not right now, anyway.   _Back to the story_. -- ...Legs don’t work, like we were saying, guy’s walking around with two crutches and a lot of Tony’s help.  And he’s on extended leave of absence from the Army, until he gets the rest of the way better, he doesn’t have to come in.  He still wears his uniform, you know.  Full-dress one too, sometimes, even though he still needs help even getting out of bed.  Here’s what you need to know about Rhodey:  Guy could get away with wearing whatever, okay?  We already established that?  But, what does he wear?  Uniform.  Whole nine yards, too, like, the tie and jacket, dress socks even, when sweat socks would do just as well.  That’s commitment for you; Rhodey is all about commitment.

And next we get to the mother-henning part.  Jesus, if Tony had a dollar for every time Rhodey’s gone all mother-hen on his ass?  Especially in the old days?  Well, let’s just say he’d be slightly richer if he had, okay?

That was why he was along on that flight to we’re-not-saying-where in the first place:  He was being a mother hen.  And it was annoying, but probably not as annoying as it would have been if it happened now, because dirty little secret here:  Back-then Tony didn’t have a whole lot of sense of responsibility.  He never had to,  Made life fun.  Not for the ones like Rhodey, who were always cleaning up for him, but back-then Tony?  He never even thought about that.

Best times were when he could get Rhodey not to think about it either.  And that was what was special about that one particular flight, was he really, really got Rhodey not to think about it, on that flight.  Here’s how it all went down:

__________________________

Saké first, dancing flight attendants second…  God, those were some nice-looking flight attendants.  And Rhodey’d had a few, but he was still being all mother-hen and shit, which was why the champagne came out.  Good champagne, natch, because who the fuck drinks cheap champagne?  And lots and lots of it, because give the girls some too, why not?  Girls got all relaxed and giggly, like girls will do, and then Rhodey…  Shall we say that’s when he stopped being Mother Hen?  Does that give you an idea what happened?

It doesn’t, not really.  Gives you an idea he was getting relaxed himself, which he was.  And giggly.  You ever seen Rhodey giggly?  That face of his, which is such a nice face, but let’s face it, it’s a pretty uptight face too.  But that day it wasn’t, he was smiling, kind of grinning almost, and those eyes of his, those nice, greenish-colored Rhodey-eyes, were half-closed, happy expression in them that just did your heart good to look at it.

That was when he hugged Tony.  Hard to remember exactly when that happened, because remember, it was everybody drinking that champagne, but it was somewhere in there, sometime after the first bottle, maybe, or it might not have been until they’d killed three or four bottles of the stuff.  Nice, vintage Veuve Clicquot.  And Rhodey’s got his tie loosened, which was all the undressed he was.  Tony’s got his shirt fucking _off_ , for god’s sake, and as for the girls?  Let’s be polite and not talk about what  they were wearing, okay?  Or what they _weren’t_ wearing, might be more accurate?

Rhodey, with his tie loosened, that nice bony, familiar Rhodey-face of his all smooth and relaxed looking for once, and him laughing way more than Rhodey ever laughs when he’s being normal.  And Tony’s sitting with him, and the girls are sort of half on top of both of them, if you can picture what that was like?

It was good, is what it was like, really, really good.  And Rhodey hugs Tony, and then Tony hugs him back, and then…  Well, it was the girls that started the next part.  First they kissed each other…  They were really hot about it, too.  Take that from someone who’s a connoisseur of those things (or he used to be).  ...And, where were we?  Oh yeah that’s right, the _kissing_ :

What made Tony kiss Rhodey?  Four or five bottles of champagne, probably.  On top of all the saké.  But it was such a nice kiss, like coming home, or hugging a puppy, or any of those kinds of simple, wholesome, innocent kinds of things.

It was a nice kiss.  Wouldn’t have gone any further than that, but Rhodey must have liked it too.  He’s the one that kissed Tony back, first with his hands all over his back, and then with them dipping down some, inside his jeans.

Rhodey’s hands, all over Tony’s ass:  Who knew he would even want that?  “What am I supposed to do with you, Tony?”  Rhodey’s voice, too, all slurred and happy-sounding.  “Can you answer me that?” he says.  “You’re,” and he did that thing people do when they’re drunk, and they can’t get the words out, “you’re incorr…  Incorrig…”

Saying back to him, “Incorrigible?”  And then Rhodey laughs, and then Tony laughs, and then all the girls are laughing too.

“You’re incorrigible,” Rhodey says.

And then Tony says, “I’m not the one with his hands all over his best friend’s ass.”

__________________________

So nice to remember the good times.  And what happened after that :  It was so very good.  Big, round bed, that Rhodey always used to say, “Why do you have to have a bed like that, in your business-jet?”  And Tony would always answer, “Well, I get up to a lot of business on there, don’t I?”  And Rhodey would always frown.

But he wasn’t frowning that time, and he wasn’t smiling and laughing anymore by then either.  Time they got to the bed, he was all business, and Tony was all business…  Remember what we said about the bed?   _It’s business time!_

Both of them, bare-ass naked:  Must have looked like a Yin-Yang symbol, Rhodey so dark, and Tony so pale, everywhere his clothing usually covers.  Yin-Yang symbol, made up of one hot muscle-y Colonel, and his lazy-ass billionaire-friend.  And, down onto the bed, Rhodey on top, heavy, with all those muscles, but it was a good kind of heavy.

Rhodey, saying, “How do we do this?”

Tony, saying, “You mean you don’t know?”  Who doesn’t know that shit?

Rhodey, getting the idea.  He’s hung, by the way, way bigger than you’d picture, by looking at him.  Tony, with his knees up practically to his ears…  He still had to coach Rhodey, a little bit:  “Like that, in there.  Go slow, Rhodey, now go really, really fast!”

__________________________

Rhodey was good at really, really fast.  He was good at slow too, but at really, really fast?  The guy was a genius.  That was one of the kind of times…

You know the kinds of times where they’re happening, and they’re good, and you think to yourself something like, “This is great, we’ll have to do this again, sometime,” but then sometime never happens, does it?  Something always comes along and gets in the way, and we all know what came along and got in the way on that particular trip to Afghanistan.

What got in the way, of course, was real life...  And by the way?  Fuck real life, the world was better without it.  ...What got in the way was Tony growing up, which was, of course, long overdue, he was almost 40 at the time, after all.  Doesn’t make it any more fun, but yeah, it probably had to happen.

What happened was people getting hurt, Rhodey included, which wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for Tony.  People are like tech, you can fix them, but there’s always going to be some marks left.  Mark XLII, all scratched and beat-up, after their crash landing.  Tony replaced those parts, buffed ‘em to a high sheen, but the memories remained, as memories do.  Memories were still there, until the day he blew poor Mark XLII up, along with all his brothers.

Memories:  The broken parts are still there in the memories, and that’s bad.  But the good parts?  Still all there too, and sometimes you can access them.  Sometimes, Tony looks at Rhodey and he sees, not the broken man he’s made of his best friend, but happy-Rhodey, from that day, with the champagne, and the flight attendants.

Sometimes he’ll look into his face, so many lines, there, that weren’t there before, and that tight look, that only pain brings, doesn’t go away even when he’s smiling.  Sometimes Tony’ll look at him, and he sees Rhodey’s goofy, drunken smile, or he’ll catch a glimpse of that determined business-time expression he wore when they were in bed together, right before he fucked Tony hard.

Sometimes he wonders if Rhodey sees things like that too, when he looks at him.  But how the hell do you even ask a question like that, of your best friend?


End file.
